Abracadabra, You're Gay (Kellic)

Twenty-Eight: Before (10)

"You look like you haven't slept in days," I insisted. "You've barely been eating, I can see your ribs through your shirt."

"I'm not hungry."

"Bullshit. What are you doing to yourself?"

"I'm scared," she said and her voice broke. She wiped a tear before it could fall. "I saw too much. I got too caught up in it and I kept pushing."

"What do you mean?" I asked cautiously.

"I saw something but it wasn't enough. I wanted to know more - I needed to know more... so I forced myself to see more. I pushed and it came all at once and I saw too much... and now..."  she looked at me, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Just speak to me," I begged her. "We'll get through this, together okay?"

"I can't. I cant speak to you," she whispered, her voice wobbling.

"Why?" I demanded.

"It's not you-" she began and I cut her off before she could finish.

"What? It's not you, it's me?" I scoffed back at her. "You're really going to give me that whole thing? I thought we were more than that."

"Vic, it really isn't you," she said, her voice coming out a little weaker than before. She'd lost the fire that usually roared inside her, now she was more dull - as if a wire had been snipped and she couldn't remember how she used to function.

She turned to me this time, looking at me as if I was suddenly very far away. "Well, it's not this you."

"What does that mean?"

"It's a different you," she said sadly. "You don't recover. You get nightmares, flashbacks ... all of it. You get sick."

"What are you talking about?" I asked her. "You've stopped speaking to me because in the future I get sick? C'mon Dani, I'll just heal myself from whatever it is, it's hardly anything for you to-"

"Empty." She interrupted, her eyes glazing over blankly in a way I'd never seen them do before. It was only now registering in my head that something was very very wrong with Danielle and it had been this way for a long time. This was just the tipping point. She was finally jumping straight off the cliff and hurtling at full speed to whatever lies below.

"You're empty," she repeated. "You can't find a purpose. Everything is too easy for you... too easy. You crave... something more... but you are still too burdened."

"Burdened by what?" I swallowed, trying not to let her creepy words frighten me.

"Us," she answered. 

"You're scaring me, I think you're sick." I said to her. "I think you've had too many visions in too short a time period and it's making you confused. Let's get you to the hospital wing, okay? They'll help you."

"They can't," she spoke quietly, letting me wrap my arm around her waist in order to lead her in the right direction. "They can't help me.  There's not much left of me for them to even help."

"What are you talking about?" I said, my voice rising in pitch as I panicked. "Dani, something's wrong with you. I've been noticing how absent you are lately and I just didn't realise it was this bad. You're not even making sense."

"There's not much left of me," she repeated, as if I hadn't even spoken. I realized she wasn't even looking at me - but rather straight ahead. I didn't exist to her right now - nothing exists to her right now other than the delusion that she's stuck in.